With the continuous development of the national economy, the types and quantities of meat processing products based on modern technology are also increasing. At present, there are approximately 250 large and medium-sized meat food enterprises and more than 100 meat food groups in China, with over 300 product categories. The competition can be described as very fierce. It is particularly important to use food additives correctly in order to establish a foothold in the meat product industry. Food additives can not only significantly improve the color, aroma, taste, and shape of meat products, but also greatly reduce production costs and improve product quality, and are widely used. The following article will focus on the application of food additives in meat products.
1.Overview of Food Additives
Food additives refer to chemically synthesized or natural substances added to food to improve its quality, color, aroma, and taste, as well as to meet the needs of preservation and processing technology. Food additives generally have the following three characteristics: firstly, they are substances added to food, therefore, they are generally not consumed separately as food; Secondly, it includes both artificially synthesized substances and natural substances; The purpose of adding it to food is to improve its quality, color, aroma, and taste, as well as to meet the needs of preservation, preservation, and processing technology.
Commonly used food additives include two categories: natural additives and artificially synthesized additives. Natural additives come from natural substances, mainly extracted from plant tissues, and also include some pigments from animals and microorganisms. Artificial synthetic additives refer to various chemical substances produced by artificial chemical synthesis methods. Both will not cause harm to the human body as long as they are used correctly.
2.Common types of meat products
Meat products refer to cooked meat products or semi-finished products made with livestock and poultry meat as the main raw material and seasoned. According to the latest classification standards, China classifies meat products into 9 categories: cured meat products, sauce marinated meat products, smoked roasted meat products, dried meat products, fried meat products, sausage products, ham meat products, seasoned meat products, and other types of meat products. According to the standards for the use of food additives, meat products can be divided into the following three categories: 1. Fresh meat includes fresh meat, chilled meat (including sour meat, chilled meat, chilled meat, etc., frozen meat); 2. Prefabricated meat products: seasoned meat products (with seasoning added to raw meat), cured meat products (such as bacon, cured meat, salted duck, Chinese ham, sausages); 3. Cooked meat products: Sauce marinated meat products (white boiled meat, sauce marinated meat, and fermented meat), smoked, roasted, roasted meat, fried meat, Western style ham (smoked, smoked, steamed ham), meat sausage, fermented meat products, cooked dried meat products (meat floss, dried meat, and dried meat), canned meat, edible animal casings, and other meat and meat products, totaling 3 major categories and 15 sub categories.
3.Specific types and effects of food additives
China's commodity classification of food additives in a total of 35 categories, including flavor enhancers, defoamers, bulking agents, coloring agents, preservatives, etc., containing additives to more than 10,000 kinds of food. Among them, "Food Additive Use Standards" and the Ministry of Health announcement allows the use of food additives are divided into 23 categories, a total of more than 2,400 kinds, the development of national or industry quality standards are 364 kinds. Mainly acidity regulators, anti-caking agents, defoamers, antioxidants, bleaching agents, bulking agents, gum-based confectionery in the base agent substances, coloring agents, color protectors, emulsifiers, enzyme preparations, flavor enhancers, flour treatment agents, film agents, moisture retention agents, nutrition enhancers, preservatives, stabilizers and coagulants, sweeteners, thickeners, food flavors, processing aids for the food industry, other 23 categories. The following are some of the more common types of food additives and their roles:
Preservatives——commonly used are sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate, sulfur dioxide, lactic acid, etc. Used in food processing of jams, preserves, etc.
Antioxidants ——similar to preservatives, can extend the shelf life of food. Commonly used are vitamin C, isovitamin C, etc.
Coloring agent ——commonly used synthetic pigments are carmine, amaranth red, lemon yellow, indigo, etc.. It can change the appearance of food to make it enhance appetite.
Thickeners and stabilizers ——can improve or stabilize the physical properties of cold foods, making the appearance of food lubricious and delicate. They make frozen foods such as ice cream maintain a soft, loose tissue structure for a long time.
Bulking agent ——part of the candy and chocolate added bulking agent, can prompt the sugar body to produce carbon dioxide, thus playing the role of bulking. Commonly used bulking agents are sodium bicarbonate, ammonium bicarbonate, compound bulking agent, etc.
Sweeteners ——commonly used synthetic sweeteners are sodium saccharin, sweetener, etc.. The purpose is to increase the sense of sweetness.
Acidulant ——some beverages, candy, etc. often use acidulants to adjust and improve the flavor effect. Commonly used citric acid, tartaric acid, malic acid, lactic acid, etc.
Spices ——spices are synthetic, there are also natural, fragrance type a lot. Consumers often eat a variety of flavors of chocolate, the production process is widely used in a variety of spices, so that it has a variety of unique flavor.
4.Application of food additives in meat products
Commonly used meat additives include coloring (color protection) agents and coloring (color protection) additives, moisture retention agents, preservatives, thickeners and antioxidants, etc.
4.1Coloring (color protection) agents and coloring (color protection) additives
Colorants themselves are generally colorless substances, but combined with food materials, can fix the pigment in the food, to promote food coloring. Meat products commonly used coloring agent is nitrate and nitrite, nitrate in the meat under the action of denitrifying bacteria (or reducing substances), reduced to nitrite; nitrite and lactic acid in meat to produce nitrite reaction; nitrite is very unstable easily decomposed to produce nitrogen oxide and nitric acid, nitrogen oxide and muscle myoglobin combined to produce bright red nitroso-myoglobin, so that the meat has a bright Rose red. However, because nitrite itself is more toxic, and can react with amines to produce strong carcinogenic effect of nitrosamines, people have long been looking for ways to replace nitrite, but so far there is no ideal alternative, and is still in use around the world.
Commonly used coloring aids are VC and iso-VC and its sodium salt. Color development additives is to prevent the generation of nitrate, the reduction of high-valent iron ions into divalent iron ions, the formation of stable coloring substances. General color protection monomer alone, in low dosage conditions, the color protection of meat products is not obvious; too high a dosage, and will increase costs, while may affect the flavor of the product. Therefore, in order to achieve good color protection effect, several monomers with color protection function or help color protection should be used in combination to achieve complementary functions and synergistic effect.
4.2Moisture Retention Agent
Water retention is one of the important indicators of meat products. Phosphate is a water retention agent, which plays an important role in the improvement of water retention, gel strength and yield of meat products. Adding phosphate in the processing of meat products can improve the pH of meat; chelate metal ions in meat; increase the ionic strength of meat; dissociate actinoglobulin.
Phosphates are widely used in the production of prepared meat products, and the most widely used polyphosphates are pyrophosphates, tripolyphosphates and hexametaphosphates, etc. Tripolyphosphates and pyrophosphates increase the ionic strength of the meat system by changing the potential of protein charges to deviate from the isoelectric point, causing the charges to repel each other, creating more space between the protein molecules, and making the meat tissue contain more water Sodium hexametaphosphate can chelate metal ions and reduce the binding of metal ions to water, thus improving water retention. The polyphosphate added to meat products can reduce the loss of original juice in meat, increase the water retention of meat products, improve the product yield, improve the texture of meat products, i.e., improve the sensory quality and physicochemical properties of meat products, and also reduce the cost of products.
4.3Preservatives
Meat products are rich in nutrients, high protein and moisture content, and are highly susceptible to microbial spoilage during processing or storage, therefore, it is necessary to use preservatives in meat products. Preservatives can inhibit microbial activity and prevent food spoilage, thereby extending the shelf life of food. The preservatives commonly used in meat products are sorbic acid and its potassium salt, sodium diacetate, sodium dehydroacetate, streptococcus lactate, etc. Sorbic acid and its salts are one of the main preservatives of food. According to the relevant information, sorbic acid has the advantages of less toxicity, less dosage and stronger preservative effect compared with benzoic acid.
Streptococcus lactate is by far the most widely studied bacteriocin, it can be used in meat products as a substitute for nitrate, without affecting the color of the meat and the role of the preservative effect, significantly reducing the use of nitrate, with the continuous development of meat processing technology, the use of preservatives also from a single addition, change to mixed use, in order to achieve a more desirable antibacterial effect.
4.4Thickener
To process meat into meat products, in addition to ensuring a certain color, flavor and taste, the product should also have a certain shape, that is, the texture of the structure. Therefore, the use of some additives with emulsification, water retention, oil retention, inhibit or delay aging, improve the yield and other functions is necessary. Thickener is a class of additives to improve and stabilize the physical properties or tissue state of meat products. Adding a certain amount of thickener in meat products can improve the physical properties and tissue form of meat products, increase the adhesion and water retention of meat products, give meat products a good taste, and also reduce the precipitation of grease and improve the yield of the product. Common thickeners include starch, carrageenan, xanthan gum, konjac gum, guar gum, etc. Carrageenan is a type of polysaccharide extracted from marine algae, which can be used in appropriate amounts according to production needs.
When carrageenan, potassium chloride, konjac gum and guar gum are mixed in a certain ratio, the gel strength reaches the maximum and the water precipitation rate is the lowest; when the compound gum is added to 0.3% in the low temperature ham according to the formula design, the sensory evaluation of the product is significantly improved; in the texture measurement, the hardness, elasticity, cohesiveness, adhesiveness and chewiness are significantly different from those without thickening agent, and the overall texture characteristics are significantly improved. It is worth to promote the application in industrial production.
4.5Colorants
In order to make meat products to achieve a good meat red color, it is necessary to add some coloring agents in meat products in limited quantities. Commonly used coloring agents are red currant red, red currant rice, chili red, carmine red, temptation red, erythrosine, sorghum red, etc., especially red currant pigment is the most common, red currant pigment is red currant mold in rice, soybean raw materials after solid fermentation or deep fermentation to get the natural pigment, is a pure natural fermentation products, high safety, chemical stability. It has antibacterial and bactericidal effect. Red yeast pigment in meat processing can be added in the right amount according to production needs, it has good coloring stability of protein, so it can give meat products unique "meat red". Red Aspergillus in the formation of pigments at the same time, but also synthesize glutamic acid substances, with aromatic effect.
The use of red Aspergillus pigments add the right amount of sugar, to reconcile the acidity, reduce the bitterness, so that the taste of meat products to achieve harmony. In order to make meat products color blending more accurate and natural, often several coloring agents are used in combination, in order to achieve complementary functions, synergistic purpose. But meat products are not allowed to add sunset yellow, lemon yellow, carmine pigment.
4.6Antioxidants
During the storage or transportation of meat products, souring and discoloration can occur under the influence of light, temperature or storage conditions, which is mainly caused by the oxidation of fat and myoglobin, and these different degrees of oxidation can cause different degrees of damage to the nutrition and quality of the product. Therefore, in order to overcome this oxidation, it is necessary to add a certain amount of antioxidants. The main antioxidants that can be added in meat products are butyl hydroxyanisole (BHA), dibutylhydroxytoluene (BHT), propyl gallate (PG), tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), isoascorbic acid and its sodium salt, etc. Among them, sodium D-isoascorbic acid is stable in nature and less expensive, which helps to reduce production costs.
With the continuous development of the meat products industry, the industry has also put forward more and higher requirements for food additives. Meat food additives as a necessary content of meat products processing, has an irreplaceable role. Only the correct use of good, safe, environmentally friendly and appropriate food additives can help the progress of the meat products industry.
